Aerospace giant Boeing Co., which for years has been cutting its workforce in Southern California, announced that it plans to increase its engineering workforce in Long Beach and Seal Beach by 1,000 positions over the next two years. It is a surprising announcement from the plane maker, which has 1,800 commercial engineers in Long Beach and Seal Beach. The company said earlier in the week that it would shutter its C-17 production line three months earlier than planned in mid-2015.

McDonnell Douglas to Post Extraordinary Gain: St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas Corp. said it would post unusual net gains of $122 million in its first-quarter results, to be announced later this month. The items include $85 million resulting from the "successful resolution" of an Internal Revenue Service case related to past years' taxes, but the company declined to elaborate on the settlement.

Nearly a quarter of a century after it began, one of the largest legal disputes in defense industry history was finally settled with two major weapons makers agreeing to pay the federal government $400 million in goods and services. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington on Thursday dismissed the lawsuit, filed in 1991, after Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. agreed to provide so-called in-kind consideration, valued at $200 million each. "We are closing a 23-year-long chapter in the annals of naval aviation and further strengthening, through the contractors' in-kind payment, the Navy's capabilities and capacities," Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said.

Malaysia to Buy Eight F/A-18s: McDonnell Douglas Corp., the plane's manufacturer, said Malaysia will become the first Southeast Asian nation to buy the fighter jet. The price was not disclosed, but it probably totals more than $208 million. Each F/A-18 costs $26 million, and Malaysia also bought support equipment, spare parts and crew-training services with the planes. The jets will be delivered in 1996.

Aerospace giant Boeing Co., which for years has been cutting its workforce in Southern California, announced that the work performed by 375 people in the Puget Sound region around Seattle is being moved to Long Beach over the next 18 months. Tim Copes, the company's vice president of commercial aviation fleet services, wrote in a note to employees Thursday that the business of modifying Boeing's commercial airplanes will gradually shift to the Southland. Boeing said it did not know exactly how many jobs the shift from the Seattle area would mean for Southern California yet, but it is the second big announcement this year by the company involving the facility located near Long Beach Airport.

After years of downsizing in Southern California, Boeing Co. said it will shift at least 300 engineering jobs on commercial aircraft to its longtime facility in Long Beach. During the next six to nine months, company employees will relocate from the Puget Sound region in Washington to the complex. The facility is next to Long Beach Airport and work done there includes assembly of the C-17 cargo jet for the Air Force. Boeing doubled down on Southern California by announcing Friday that it would establish a new engineering design center for commercial aircraft.

A U.S. appeals court refused to revive criminal charges against a McDonnell Douglas Corp. executive in a ruling that may damage the government's effort to prove the Boeing Co. unit illegally obtained U.S. export licenses. The court upheld a judge's decision barring prosecution of Robert Hitt for allegedly conspiring to fraudulently obtain licenses to sell machine tools to China. The 2-1 ruling said prosecutors waited too long to indict Hitt.

Almost to the day Donald W. Douglas flew his first plane 80 years ago, the last aircraft to carry his name will be rolled out in Long Beach, ending another chapter of Southern California's aviation history. At an elaborate ceremony today at the plant's main hangar, former McDonnell Douglas Corp. executives, engineers and factory workers will be watching as an MD-11, the last commercial aircraft built under the company name, is delivered to Lufthansa.

A federal judge on Friday dismissed an indictment against a McDonnell Douglas Corp. executive who was charged with conspiring to divert sophisticated manufacturing tools to the Chinese military in violation of U.S. export laws. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington ruled that the conspiracy charge against Robert Hitt, director of McDonnell Douglas' China program, based in Long Beach, was barred by the five-year statute of limitations.

Boeing Co. has sold its Long Beach-based McDonnell Douglas Technical Services subsidiary to Banc One Equity Capital. The unit provides contract engineering, technical and information technology services to U.S. companies. Terms were not disclosed. The unit was formed in 1989 as a subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas Corp., which is now owned by Seattle-based Boeing.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. and a Chinese government-owned company pleaded not guilty to charges they conspired to divert sophisticated machine tools to the Chinese military in violation of U.S. export laws. The pleas were entered by attorneys representing McDonnell Douglas, which was acquired by Boeing Co. in 1997, and China's National Aero-Technology Import Export Corp., known as CATIC, during a brief court arraignment in Washington.

A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted aerospace firm McDonnell Douglas Corp., now owned by Boeing Co., and a Chinese airline partner on charges that the companies conspired to illegally divert sophisticated manufacturing tools to the Chinese military in violation of U.S. export laws. At a time of heightened concerns over allegations that China has successfully pilfered U.S. military secrets, federal authorities charged that the scheme allowed $1.